Hector Lombard Feeling at Home in His Career Ahead of UFC on FX 6

HECTOR LOMBARD FEELING AT HOME IN HIS CAREER AHEAD OF UFC ON FX 6
BY STEVEN MARROCCO ON DEC 13, 2012 AT 8:15 PM ET

GOLD COAST, Australia – Hector Lombard is in a good mood.

A beaming, fist-bumping good mood, to be exact.

Those who've followed his career know him to be a frequently sullen, often monosyllabic guy who carries a chip on his shoulder. A guy who gets upset at reporters. A guy who, if you've trained with him, shows an unprofessional lack of mercy.

Not this Hector Lombard. After talking about Australia, where the Cuba-born fighter has long made his home, the joy of returning to the cage, and watching his countrymen on "The Ultimate Fighter: Team Australia vs. Team U.K," he's at ease almost to the point of being unrecognizable.

Were it not for the sense he could lapse into sudden psychopathy, you might mistake him for a personal trainer.

"I'm at home," he tells MMAjunkie.com. "This is my house. Australia. I started my career here, and I have more fights than any Australian. More fights than (Anthony) Perosh. More fights than George Sotiropoulos. Check the records, check the statements, check the papers."

Lombard (31-3-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC), who on Friday meets Rousimar Palhares (14-4 MMA, 7-3 UFC) at "UFC on FX 6: Sotiropoulos vs. Pearson," now feels blessed to have lived through the struggles he's encountered in the past six months. It took him a while, though.

"You're right," he responds to the suggestion that things won easy aren't worth having. "But for other guys, it's been a lot easier. For me, it's been really hard."

Actually, it might have been more like six years of struggle. You might not know it, but talking to the Olympian who emigrated to Australia seeking a better life, his behind-the-scenes drama hasn't been limited to sparring beefs.

But let's start with current events.

His most recent fight went pretty much the opposite the way he wanted it to go and most of the MMA community thought it would. It was so bad, he had this thought in-cage, mid-bout: "You need to retire ASAP."

In July at UFC 149, Lombard lost a split decision to Tim Boetsch in a bout that was supposed to anoint him the next contender to the middleweight title. Instead, it deflated years of anticipation built for his arrival to the UFC.

Afterward, he found out his sternum was fractured and that it may have been two months before the fight. That didn't make him feel any better. He lost sleep and watched critics come out of the woodwork on Twitter.

So he did what he always did when he was feeling down: He went to the gym. But the doctor told him he had to wait six weeks before training again. When he showed up at American Top Team, his long-running home base in Cococunt Creek, Fla., they kicked him out. Gently.

Lombard was always a guy who showed up to train angry and left angry. Most professional fighters say that the rage they brought with them to the sport dissipates with the day-in, day-out grind of training, but not him.

The feelings were no hindrance to his performance. He won a staggering 24 bouts between 2007 and 2012, which made him one of the hottest commodities outside the UFC. He signed with Bellator in 2009 and ruled the promotion's middleweight division with an iron fist, though his competition was often suspect.

When Lombard's contract expired and he signed a deal with the UFC, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said his debut was worth $700,000.

Lombard, though, said he was a mess personally and professionally for his fight against Boetsch. He won't say what went wrong. But whatever it was, it robbed him of the ability to seize the moment that night. The fractured sternum certainly didn't help matters.

It took the heartache of loss to make him realize that his love of his craft is stronger than the anger that's shadowed him all these years.

"You're not supposed to be that way," he said. "I love to do what I do, which is fighting. I shouldn't be angry and upset all the time.

"I felt it was a learning experience. I feel I needed to do some changes in my camp and changes in my life. I thank God every single day for making things that way so I could wake up and say I'm doing things the wrong way. After the loss, I said I have to be radical. So that made me make radical decisions, and now I'm happier. I feel blessed."

And that feeling is something that he believes can't be measured in show and win purses.

"Look, let me tell you one thing: Even if I had to fight for peanuts in the UFC, I would," he said. "Is that good enough?"

A better question at this point is whether Lombard's contentment is lasting. Bringing up the subject of a previous loss, and the recent news that the man who gave it to him, Gegard Mousasi, is soon likely in the UFC, threatens his peace.

"The funny thing for me is this sport has become a joke," Lombard said. "And no disrespect, but it's become a joke with all these fighters trying to copy Chael Sonnen. OK, Chael was the original, right? It's good for him what he became with all his media trash, which I have respect for him, because he was the first person who came up with the idea. And now, what's this douchebag that's always talking s--- about me? Michael Bisping. He thinks that he's funny. Now, he's just copying him.

"I actually saw him at the elevator, and Michael Bisping has got the smallest hands I've ever seen in my life. He says I'm a midget. OK. Fair enough. But I squeeze his hand – I didn't want to shake his hand, but I said, I don't want to leave you like that because I have a little bit of education – and he was about to cry, so I let it go.

"But let's go back to what I was saying to you from before. Now, everyone has become a professional wrestler. It's just talk, talk, talk. Now, Mousasi says he never trained. Can you believe that? Is that a joke, or what? He used to train with Fedor (Emelianenko). He used to train with M-1. He went to train with [Georges St-Pierre]. Now, here we go, he comes back and says he never trained. I want to put my hands on him before I retire because I need to whoop that kid up."

Lombard insists he wasn't training when he fought Mousasi and was tricked into competing in the PRIDE welterweight grand prix. Later, he said he was threatened by a PRIDE official when he told them he wouldn't compete again for the promotion.

"The Japanese called me up, and they said, 'We have a fighter for you,'" Lombard said. "And I said, 'When is that?' They said, 'In two weeks. He's a young guy who doesn't have any experience, so he's going to be an easy fight.' I said, 'Listen, I know he's got about 20 free fights. What the hell is going on?' So I decided to walk away from these Japanese, because they all lie all the time. So I said to PRIDE, 'Go away. Don't ever contact me again.' Then they wanted to intimidate me and s---. They said, 'We're going to send the Yakuza. We're going to kill you.' I'm like, 'What the hell is going on with these people?'"

A former PRIDE official had no knowledge of any threats against Lombard.

The now 34-year-old fighter said his career was further obstructed by EliteXC, which folded up shop shortly after he signed a contract. He claims Strikeforce acquired his paper, but Rebney offered him four times the money of the previous deal. Strikeforce then threatened to take him to court, but the Bellator CEO was able to clear the way for a new contract.

A Bellator official declined comment on Lombard's claims.

Of the events that have brought him to where he is today, Lombard said, "I think there's always a God up there who's making judgements, and good things happened to me. It wasn't easy."

He is, however, expecting to have no trouble resurrecting his UFC career against Palhares, whose leglocks have won him several turndowns from perspective opponents. Lombard said he didn't think twice about accepting the bout. After requesting to fight on his home soil, he got a call from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, who proposed the matchup.

"I said, 'Yeah. Whatever. I'll fight anyone,'" he said.